Chapter 222 - Amatores

They returned three days later, shortly after dusk.

The magician sensed them the instant they neared the villa. He heard them whispering encouragements to one another as they hurried along the street. And he could smell the woman's perfume: ghost-scent of rose petals and lilies. He could also tell by her odor that she was no longer mortal. Mortals have an opulent aroma-- a mélange of pheromones and stomach gases, blood, sweat, shit, and the excretions of their reproductive organs-- nigh irresistible to the creatures of the night. The striga have no natural aroma, only what smells cling to them from their environment.

So he has done it, the magician thought.

The thought came without anger or condemnation. What could he do about it now? What good would it do to be wrathful, to punish the boy and his new-made bride? He was not predisposed to put the child out, exile him from his heart and his home, so he sat. He put aside his reading and waited.

They knocked on the door, greeted the porter when he let them into the courtyard. They had a brief, low conversation with the tall Nubian, laughing nervously, then crossed the peristyle to the terrace.

In the house. Down the corridor.

"Father?" Apollonius said, standing in the doorway.

Gon turned to him. "Paulo."

The girl, Julia, was standing just out of sight. The magician could hear her wringing her hands anxiously. If she were still mortal, he would have heard her heart racing, smelled the metallic odor of fear-sweat. But she was not mortal. There was only silence from her, apart from the dry rustling sound of her hands twining restlessly, and the faint smell of rose petals.

The magician made a subtle gesture with his fingers, smiling. "Well, let me have a look at her."

Apollonius turned toward his bride and motioned for her to step forward.

She slid into view, brow furrowed with worry.

She was beautiful.

The living blood had made her a goddess. Flesh as white as new fallen snow. Lips as red as rubies. Her curly brown hair had taken on a new luster, the highlights glinting like polished copper. Her eyes, like the magician's, had transformed from brown to gold. They glittered as she looked from father to son, catching the lamplight and encapsulating it so that it looked like two tiny candles flickered within her pupils.

She was not a powerful lamia. He could see that she was not a true immortal, not an Eternal like himself. She would live a thousand years, perhaps, maybe less, but she would live out those years in absolute perfection of form, the embodiment of the female ideal.

"Venus, in her jealousy, would strike you down," the magician said wonderingly.

Julia stared at him is disbelief. The muscles of her neck and upper torso relaxed, and she smiled hesitantly. She had fine, sharp fangs.

"Apollonius was certain you would be furious," the young woman said.

The magician shrugged. "I am. I am not. We all do foolish things in our youth. You would not be so troubled of my opinion if you knew all the mistakes I have made in my lifetime."

"So you think I am a mistake?" Julia asked, looking anxious again.

"Of course you are, if I am thinking of your father," the magician replied. "Not for Paulo, I am certain, and not so much for myself. I will enjoy your company, until you decide to abandon me—as you will, someday. As you should. All young birds must fly the nest. I'm afraid, however, you've dashed your father's hopes. He will never be a grandfather now. Paulo informed you of that aspect of our curse, did he not?"

The girl nodded, looking ashamed.

"So we can stay?" Apollonius blurted. He could scarce contain himself, he was so anxious. The magician saw that the boy had been certain of his maker's rage, that he had expected to be rebuked, perhaps even exiled, and it made him sad.

"Of course you can stay. Did you expect me to put you out?"

"I was afraid--"

"Then you do not know me half as well as you think you do." He waved them into his sitting room. "Come inside. Shut the door. We have too many servants, and they are all equipped with functional ears and tongues, I assure you."

Julia laughed softly and approached the ancient striga. Apollonius followed. He looked as if he could not quite accept that he would not be punished. Too many years in bondage to Laevinus, where he had been beaten for the slightest infraction-- or none at all. Perhaps someday he would forget the stings of his childhood.

The magician rose as the boy closed the door. He went to a dresser and began to slide the drawers open and shut. "You will, I assume, visit your father next?"

"Yes," Julia said.

"Then you must disguise your new complexion. The man believes that we are albinos, but he will not believe such a fanciful lie of you. He will know immediately that you are changed. Your appearance might even frighten him. Unless you plan to tell him what we are…?"

"No!" Julia gasped. "I'm sure my elopement has been enough of a strain on him."

"Has Paulo told you why mortal men must never learn of our existence?"

"Yes."

"Ah! Here it is!" The magician took a box from one of the drawers. It was fetchingly engraved— a buxom Venus in repose-- and filled with small jars of cosmetics. He passed it to Julia, and motioned for her to sit in his chair. "You will have to perform this ritual every day now, so long as your father lives. You can defend your new sleeping habits by saying that you are accommodating your husband's infirmity, but your whited appearance will have to be concealed."

Julia sat and he handed her a mirror. He pointed to one of the jars in the box. "Try that one first. That tint, I have found, gives the most natural hue to our flesh, and it will last through most of the evening if you do not get it wet. That one, applied to the cheeks, will give you the blush of good health."

Julia plucked a small sponge from the box and began to apply the cosmetics to her face. "Like this?" she asked, and the magician nodded. Apollonius could not tear his eyes from her. His master, seeing the stars in the boy's eyes, could certainly understood. It was how he gazed at his soul mate Zenzele. Her every movement was a wonder, her merest utterance a revelation.

"There is another matter we should discuss," the magician said after a few minutes. The youngsters looked at him, curious, and he told them of the warning he'd received from the blood drinkers of Baiae.

"And you believe in this oracle?" Julia asked. "This immortal named Murcella?"

"I have personally witnessed her prophecies come true," the magician said, pacing the room, "often enough to give her warning serious consideration."

"But it is so vague!"

"Yes, she could not discern a specific date, or even a general one, but that is to be expected. You will find, dear Julia, that our kind tend to be very careless of time. Time becomes an abstraction when senility and death are not breathing down your neck. Murcella's prophecy will very likely come to pass, but it may be years, even decades, before the calamity she's foreseen occurs." He fixed them both with his eyes, the girl first, and then Apollonius. "Or it could be tomorrow," he said.

"So you want to join them in Rome?" Apollonius asked. In his passion for Julia, he had forgotten all about the striga of Baiae, but he was reminded now, and still curious of their brethren.

"I don't believe my father could be convinced to go to Rome," Julia said worriedly. "Rome is too full of ghosts for my father. My mother's shade is what chased him here to Pompeii." She looked pleadingly at Apollonius. "I won't leave him!"

"I cannot return to Rome. I am a wanted man. Or, I should say, Gaius Vestallis is a wanted man. My rampage in the Villa Claudianis will not soon be forgotten, and my appearance is too distinctive to go unnoticed, even in the eternal city. We can conceal the color of our flesh but not the shape of our face. Or our hair. Cut it off and it regrows in moments." He stroked his whiskers thoughtfully. "A holiday perhaps? To celebrate your union?"

Julia nodded eagerly. "I might be able to convince him of that."

"The only problem is, we don't know the timing of this disaster. We might tour for years and come back the very day it happens."

All three sighed, almost as one, and then shared a chuckle. Whatever tension was left between them melted in that moment, and they all felt the yoke of familial affection settle comfortably upon them. "I suppose we can worry about it tomorrow," the magician said. "You should go and see your father, my dear. He's been worried sick about you."

Julia put her sponge down. "How do I look?"

"Alive," the magician teased, but he looked worried.

The youngsters departed and the magician returned to his scrolls. He read, and pretended he did not hear the row taking place next door.

Varus flew into a rage at his daughter's return. All the strain from three days worth of fretting exploded out of him in a torrent of angry recriminations. The magician might have been concerned for their safety if the young lovers were still mortal—Cornelius was that angry—but there was nothing the retired senator could do to physically harm the two. Not even Julia, who was a minor striga at best.

Apparently the shouting was loud enough for the rest of the household to hear, even without a blood drinker's amplified senses. Fulvius appeared in the magician's doorway, his wizened features drawn with concern. "Germanis?" he croaked. He stood trembling in his nightgown, one hand at his collar.

"Return to bed, my friend," the master of the house said. "The children are safe. Cornelius could no more harm them than I could. He is furious, and rightly so, but he deserves to have his say."

The old man nodded and withdrew from the doorway.

The magician returned to his scroll—"Brutus" by Gaius Cassius Parmensis-- only looking up once, with a wince, when Cornelius called his daughter a whore. But that was the climax of the confrontation. Julia ran away in tears, Apollonius at her heels, and her father got roaring drunk and threw pottery at the walls the rest of the evening.

He will come to smooth things over tomorrow evening, the magician thought, and he was right.

The two young lovers returned shortly before dawn, hand-in-hand, heads hanging. The magician was sitting in the big courtyard, enjoying the chorus of the crickets and the relatively cool breeze that was drifting in from the bay. It might smell of the fish sauce factory down by the harbor, but its chill was a welcome respite from the constricting heat of recent weeks. Tendrils of fog, thin and buoyant as spider silk, drifted in the air about head-height. The moon, nearly full, made the thin mist luminesce.

The magician rose when he heard the tread of their feet and opened the door for them. Enuk was snoring in his quarters. No need to wake him.

"Father," Apollonius greeted him, misery incised into his features.

Julia did not look up until Gon hooked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face. Her cheeks were smeared with tarry black tears, her makeup streaked. She looked like a grotesque clown—and yet, still beautiful.

"Dry your eyes, my dear," the magician said. "Your father will come and patch things up soon enough. He did not mean the things he said tonight. Men like Cornelius do not know how to deal with fear-- they feel it so rarely-- so instead they get angry."

"Do you truly think so?" the girl asked. "He's never spoken so roughly to me."

Gon smiled. "You've never run away with a boy before."

He was just grateful the man had finished cursing and breaking crockery. Cornelius had passed out drunk about an hour ago, and his servants had put him to bed. He had called for Julia as they tucked him into his covers, his speech slurred by wine and grief. "Where is Julia?" he had moaned. "She needs to come home!"

The magician's servants had prepared a spare bed for her, but she insisted on sleeping with Apollonius. "We are man and wife now," she said firmly. "We exchanged our vows on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius."

"I have no objection to that," the magician said, "though I expect your father will insist on a more formal ceremony when he comes around."

And he was right on that point, too.

Cornelius came the following evening, contrite and (thankfully) nearly sober. He apologized for his bad behavior and the hurtful things he had said to Julia the previous night. Julia wept in his arms and apologized for being willful and inconsiderate. Varus told her that he had no objections to their marriage, only let him arrange a formal ceremony, make their nuptials official. And, of course, they needed to draw up a formal marriage contract. "Why, you still have all your childhood toys!" the man cried. "You need to take them to the Temple of Venus and make your offering to the goddess. I know you don't believe in the gods, but it is a tradition! Your mother did it when we were betrothed. Do it in her memory, if not for my sake."

Julie agreed to it all, relieved her father had forgiven her so quickly.

"In truth, I can't imagine a better arrangement," the man said, eyes bright with excitement. "My daughter married to a handsome and wealthy young man, a father-in-law I can get drunk with when the mood strikes my fancy, and my beloved daughter living right next door! Toss a couple plump grandbabies into the mix and I can die a happy man!"

The following afternoon… disaster.